The Case of the Lonely Accountant
Bournemouth 2008, the height of the financial crash. Don Bayliss, a timid and well-mannered accountant, vanishes after leaving his office before a scheduled meeting. His wife is both perplexed and distraught. His clothes are found discarded at the mouth of Poole Harbour.
After seven years of searching with no firm leads, the investigation is closed, and Don is presumed dead.
Until, sorting through his possessions, his wife finds a garish business card of one Dwight Fricker and decides it must be of some importance. Now more than eight years after his disappearance Dorset Police call in the Finder and the cold case is reopened.
The Finder begins with the last sightings of Don on the day he went missing, hearing how he seemed in a hurry, somewhat distracted? He unearths a string of overlooked clues that lead him to face the unlikely friendships that Don had made, the somewhat overbearing nature of Mrs Bayliss, the secrets that haunted him in his home life and the mistakes that led to him being investigated at work.
The Case of the Lonely Accountant is a dark and rich mystery that centres upon one lonely man and reveals the distance between those who are missing and those who are lost.
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Simon Mason
Simon Mason is a writer of fiction. At first he wrote books for adults, then books for children, which grew up at roughly the same rate his own children grew up, and now he is back writing books for adults again. In 1990, The Great English Nude won the Betty Trask prize for best first novel. In 2002, The Quigleys, for seven-to-nine-year-olds, received a special commendation in the Branford Boase prize for best first children’s novel. Moon Pie (2011), for eight-to-twelve-year-olds, was shortlisted for The Guardian Children’s Fiction prize. More recently he has written three crime novels for young adults featuring the sixteen-year-old slacker genius Garvie Smith. Running Girl (2014) was shortlisted for the Costa prize for best children’s book, Kid Got Shot (2016) won the Crimefest prize for best YA crime novel, for which Hey, Sherlock! (2018) was also shortlisted. In addition to his fiction he has also written a work of nonfiction, The Rough Guide to Classic Novels(2007), for which he chose, read and wrote pieces on 200 classic novels from all world traditions, from the time of Don Quixote to the present day. He has pursued a parallel career as a publisher. From 2012 to 2018 he was Managing Director of David Fickling Books, where he worked with many wonderful writers, including Philip Pullman, whose book of essays, Daemon Voices(2016), he edited. Born in Sheffield, where his father was captain of Sheffield United, he has lived in Oxford now for thirty-five years.
Finder Mysteries
Finder Mysteries consists of three books. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
